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Wednesday, May 30, 2018

Propaganda of Interest (Episode III)

The utility of propaganda is the organized deployment of information packages which have two major aspects to their structure, which relate to their functions. The "outer" or "ectoteric" layer of the package, which is what it is "supposed" to be or typically "deemed" to be, is the phenomenal mode of the propaganda entity. The "inner" or "endoteric" layer is what the propaganda actually is, whether or not it is in any way at odds with or at any rate different than the ectoteric layer. I reserve the use of the term "exoteric" and "esoteric" for other levels of analysis for this subject. Considering this level of analysis to be "mundane", I treat of this entity as an objectivized instrument of an intent which precedes and which creates and guides its existence. So this is a matter of looking at the entity in question as if it were a collected specimen, and dealing with it as though a student of its characteristics and properties just as if it were a "thing" rather than a person. Outwardly, this entity is like all other art, a reconstruction of elements which pre-existed it so as to portray something in a way that expresses something which either is actually real (think "minimalism") or else on the other extreme to indicate something which is beyond any direct representation of the reality of any of the elements used, at the other extreme (on this axis, so think here "abstract" art). What is seen immediately is that this is an axis of examination which is somewhat arbitrarily "inserted" into the phenomenon of art, and is intended as a pragmatic approach to considering just one, complex axis of its information.Looking at this axis, it is multiplex in its bundles of consideration, but it is also here forcibly constrained by the notion of a semiotic limit which binds it to a sort of parabolic curve. On one end is a minimum of one kind of information, so that there is simply a frame hung over the matter displayed, and that is one kind of "bare" art (or "barely" art... if at all...), then on the other end of this curve, it portrays elements which may not even have any representational function per se, to the point of not even possessing any empirical content which can actively guide the mind of the audience toward any interpretation that could be shown to intelligibly correspond to the work. These are the often ugly extremes which are useful at least in demonstrating some sort of continuum which exists between them. This is also simply one "bundle" of information on this semiotic axis, and so there are other considerations which can and will apply in most cases. But one gets the distinct impression of a Shannon-type curvature to the way information flows through the production of art, and so it seems a fair approach alongside any others that could be employed. It extends further opportunities for constructive analysis. One can see that it applies to objects beyond the realm of art, just as art itself is a manifestation of interactions of agental mentalities which comprise the universe out of which art is constructed and in which it is encountered as a product.So there is also the analysis of the way that inspiration encounters with the artist, and how that is negotiated by his various levels of faculties for being aware of and processing that information, and how he can proceed to respond to it and potentially augment his own active expression vis-a-vis that encounter. It certainly needn't be merely considered inspiration for the sake of art, at this level. What it is to which the agent responds needn't be rendered into any artistic account, or at least that account may be nothing which expresses beyond the private domain of the agent who is its interlocutor. My responses to my encounter with "Person of Interest" (qui de reus), where I treat it as a specimen of entity rather than allow it the power to interact with my own being as it was truly intended, is an example of how some phenomena can be objectified and analyzed rather than treated as a living partner in a relationship of exchanged influences. Indeed, it is the right response, considering the nature of the entity, that it be treated as a propaganda package rather than as a work of art. And so though there is necessarily some degree of influence which must obtain that is natural to the power of that art, it is subdued in favor of the analysis of its characteristics of structure and function. It is no "mere" work of fine art. It is art with a purpose as part of a system of sociological structures that have given rise to it, invested in it, and which have some gain in view that holds out no concern for the freedom of the audience to simply enjoy and interpret the work as though it were "just" a work of art.

So I will continue to analyze this art-as-propaganda, which is more deeply propaganda-as-art, so as to expose its intended effects. In this process I will use the plot structure and story arc as the primary frame of reference, with character and event development acting as a secondary but integral feature. The context of the real world in which the propaganda is created, in terms of my analysis of its fifth columnar aspects, will help guide this analysis, as well as any discussion of the ideas which are broached in the series which deserve a better treatment than could be delivered through how it was expressed and evolved in the propaganda.